she had been
in my boudoir since it was finished.

"Why won't you have up some of your things?" she said, at last. "It
don't look like you, this grand place."

"No, it is not very like me, is it? But you see everything is changed,
and they would not do mixed, the old and the new. I am a new person."
I sighed. "See--this book is the only thing I brought with me, besides
the miniature of my great-great-grandmother," and I took up La
Rochefoucauld tenderly.

"It don't feel like home," said Hephzibah, and then she suddenly burst
into tears.

"Oh, my deary!" she sobbed, "And you so beautiful, and pale, and
proud, and never saying a word, and they are none of them fit to black
your boots."

"Oh, hush, hush, Hephzibah!" I said.

My voice calmed her. She looked round as though afraid that grandmamma
would come in and scold her for crying.

"There! I am an old fool!" she whimpered. "But it is being so happy
myself and knowing what real love is that makes me cry."

This picture of my dear old nurse as the heroine of a real love story
was so pathetically comic that a lump, half tears, half laughter, rose
in my own throat.

"I _am_ so glad you are happy, Hephzibah," I said, unsteadily. "And of
course I am happy, too. Come--I will show you the beautiful chain Mr.
Gurrage gave me lately, and a set of new rings, a ruby, a sapphire, a
diamond, each stone as big as a peanut."

Hephzibah had not lived with grandmamma for years without acquiring a
certain tact. She spoke no more of things that could emotion us, and
soon we parted, smiling grimly at each other.

But the sense of exaltation was gone.

I could fly a little, like a bird round a large aviary. The bars were
there beyond.

VII

It was odious weather, the afternoon of the 15th. Our eight guns had
arrived in time for tea, some with wives, some without--one with a
playful, giddy daughter. Men predominated.

There were some two or three decent people from the county round. The
remainder, commercial connections, friends of the past.

One terrible woman, with parted, plastered hair and an aggressive
voice and rustling silks, dominated the conversation. She is the wife
of the brother of the late Mr. Gurrage's partner who "died youngish."

This couple come apparently every year to the best partridge drive.
"Dodd" is their name.

Mrs. Dodd was extremely ill at ease among the other ladies, but was
determined to let them know that she considered herself the